The mighty Great Britain is not what it used to be. Its glory days are long gone and the financial recession of 2008 struck Britain bad. There’s a gap between the wealthy and the poor, like there’s always been. And it has grown greatly over the years. It is especially visible in the division of the northern and southern parts of England. The southern parts of England have London as its centre, and are doing more than well, but the northern parts of England are suffering. They are unable to sustain themselves. Their employment has risen, and people are facing tougher and bigger challenges. But perhaps those challenges are not only a material challenge, but also an emotional challenge, as Bernard Hare argues in his radio essay “Poverty is a State of Mind” from the BBC network, 2012. But is his argument correct, when he says that poverty is mostly in your mind?
In this essay I am going to analyse the radio essay ” Poverty is a State of Mind” by Bernard Hare. Part of my essay will focus on Hare’s use of his own experience, the way he uses contrasts and his use of pathos, logos and ethos.
Bernard Hare is a social worker and writer. He was born in the town of Leeds in North England in 1958. He was the son of a coal miner and a shop worker. He was born into poverty because his family did not have a lot of money. But Hare never saw that, he argues that even though he grew up poor in Leeds, he had love, security and a good social environment. Because of that, he never felt he was alone nor did he feel poor in spirit, which Hare believes is how the poorest people, who have basically nothing, are feeling today.
Things changed though, when the strike of the coal miners began. And everything good about Leeds that he had known shattered to pieces. When they protested against Margret Thatcher’s liberalization, Hare got caught in the middle, which led him to doing drugs and starting drinking. But later in his life when he came across some young kids